SUMMARY
  • 'Alien: Romulus' introduces a terrifying hybrid creature called the "Offspring".
  • 'Offspring' looks very similar to the 'Engineers' from 'Alien: Covenant'.
  • Fede Álvarez builds on Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' and 'Covenant' by using the black goo concept for evolutionary narrative.

Spoiler Alert!!

The Alien franchise has been one of the few franchises that has managed to terrify the audience with its sci-fi horror and action for decades now. Ridley Scott began the franchise with Alien in 1979, followed by James Cameron’s sequel and later many more prequels.

Alien: Covenant
Alien: Covenant | Credit: 20th Century Studios

Now, after 7 years since the release of Alien: Covenant, xenomorphs are back on screen in Alien: Romulus. This time, Evil Dead fame Fede Álvarez took the directorial role, and the story of the movie takes place between the events of Alien and Aliens, where a group of young space colonists encounter deadly creatures as they explore an abandoned space station.

The Horrifying Ending of Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus
Alien: Romulus | Credit: 20th Century Studios YouTube

The movie already has a lot of face-hugging and chest-bursting scenes, but the ending is what caught the attention of viewers this time. It introduces a new monster, and the question arises- Where did this creepy creation come from?

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The plot of Alien: Romulus follows Rain, who is played by Cailee Spaeny, and her crew. The group explores a damaged space station called Renaissance, which is divided into two sections, Remus and Romulus.

The team encounters xenomorphs, and the fight for survival begins. But while everything is happening, they discover Weyland-Yutani’s sinister experiments. The company had the vision to evolve the human species into a more resilient working species that can be used for space exploration, and it has created a black serum from xenomorph DNA.

Things go south when Isabela Merced’s character, Kay, who is already pregnant, injects herself with that black serum because she thinks it will save her unborn child. But what happens next is something that even hardcore horror fans might find disturbing. Many viewers took to social media to share their experiences after watching the scene.

After getting injected, Kay delivers an alien egg that contains a human-xenomorph hybrid. The creature is termed “Offspring” in the movie credits. The newborn grows rapidly and starts feeding on Kay’s dead body as it is secreting the same black goo that was earlier seen in the lab.

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The scene where the Offspring feeds on the corpse is a reference to Renaissance art, which was seen earlier in the movie, where a baby was feeding on his mother’s dead body. Although Rain later manages to blast the creature into an asteroid field, the noticeable thing here is that the Offspring looks like the Engineers seen in Prometheus.

Prometheus, Covenant, and the DNA of Alien: Romulus

Engineer in Alien: Covenant
Engineer in Alien: Covenant | Credit: 20th Century Studios

It was not just a coincidence that the Offspring looked much like the Engineers. Director Fede Álvarez himself revealed in an interview with Variety that the creature’s design was influenced by Ridley Scott‘s prequels, Alien: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. Talking about the black serum, he said,

The black goo is the root of the whole thing that was introduced in ‘Prometheus’. It’s the root of all life, but also particularly the xenomorphs come out of that thing, which means it has to be inside them. It’s the xenomorphs’ semen, almost.

It seems like this connection was not just about the looks. In Alien: Covenant, David’s experiments created many life forms that depend on their host, and xenomorph is just one possibility of them among many.

Álvarez got inspired by this concept and he used the black goo as a narrative device that will help him to explore some new evolutionary ways. The Offspring is one example of that, which represents a combination of human, xenomorph, and Engineer DNA.

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However, in the interview, Álvarez revealed that it was his son who pointed out the parallel to the Newborn from Alien: Resurrection and he was not even aware of that. The director was more focused on Prometheus and Covenant, as he hoped people would pick the Engineer similarity.

Alien: Romulus is running in theaters now.

Alien: Prometheus and Alien: Covenant are streaming on Disney+ and Prime Video respectively.

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